Airport Environment at Night

[Anthony Santanastaso]

Hi everyone,

I have officially made the leap into using X-Plane over FSX. I spent several hours last evening / this morning configuring it with the help of Keith and Ty. Overall, I really think that I will enjoy the experience more and I look forward to performing many flights online.

One quick question: it appears as if the airport environment at night is very dark. I know from experience that there should be more light emitted from the flood lights, etc. located around an airport and it appears in X-Plane as pretty dark. Especially the ramp areas around buildings and terminals where you would expect an increased amount of flood light.

Does anybody know how to increase the effectiveness of the lights around the airport? Or, is that just the way it is?

For the record, the black-level and darkness of the rest of the game is perfect. Night is true night. I wouldn't want to turn up the overall brightness of the game, just the effectiveness of the lighting at each airport, if that makes sense.

(Remember I am a new X-Plane user - be easy on me if this question seems ridiculous!)

[Anthony Santanastaso]

In reference to the above post, would you recommend the following: http://forums.x-pilot.com/files/file/43 ... lane-1020/?

[Jeff N]

Can't hurt to try. Just make sure you save your original lights.text file.

I'm going to try it myself when I get a chance. Thanks for the heads up.

EDIT: In response to your original question, I played with the gamma setting and monitor brightness until I got the night lighting where I wanted it. I guess it's still a little darker than real world night lighting but I'm used to it.

[Jeff N]

Anthony, I tried the night lighting add-on last night and while it looks fantastic, I experienced a huge FPS hit. I don't know if the hit was due to the lights or not but I won't get a chance to trouble shoot for a few days so I thought I'd ask if you or anyone else had tried it out.

[Pieces]

I switched it over and haven't noticed any FPS difference. Lights are noticeably brighter but there are still super dark areas on the airport ramps.

[Keith Smith]

FWIW, I can barely see where I'm going at night while taxiing at my home airport, so the lighting seems realistic enough to me

[Anthony Santanastaso]

FWIW, I can barely see where I'm going at night while taxiing at my home airport, so the lighting seems realistic enough to me

Ha! FRG has a tad more light, KS!

[Peter Grey]

FWIW, I can barely see where I'm going at night while taxiing at my home airport

Funny, I never had that problem at Atlanta...